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Tips for Posting

--How to make your post a decent length

This is an issue because while this is not a lit RP, it is semi-lit. A reasonable amount of effort should be dedicated to making quality posts. The problem with short posts is that the lack of content means that they are not developing a character and they’re not pushing plot ahead. And the major issue is that they give your RP partner very little to reply to most of the time.
So how can you beef up your posts to be higher quality? Sometimes we all struggle with this. A few good ways to add content are:

1. Internal dialoguing. While too much of it can be annoying, going into a little detail about what your character is thinking is a good way to add content, show motivations and, coupled with actions, can give the other RPers a way to speculate on what their body language or facial expressions are like so they can make their characters respond accordingly. If I know Bob is unhappy about a situation but trying to hide it that is very helpful. But if I know he’s unhappy about it and no mention is made of him trying to hide this, I might be able to have my character pick up on this since this normally would reflect in his facial expression or body language.

2. Actions. Try to describe what your character is actually doing—even if it’s small gestures like wringing their hands or running their hands through their hair. Sometimes we get so focused on just posting what our character is saying that we forget how people tend to constantly be in motion. But at the same time, body language is a very important part of communication, so don’t hesitate to post what your character is doing. It doesn’t have to be significant; even the smallest gestures can give hints about what a character is feeling.

3. Description. This one can be a bit tricky because you can’t insert superfluous description in every single post. However, if your character is in a new location or moving around on a street or even is inside, you can add some minor descriptions of the area around them to beef up your post. This may not build character or push ahead plot but it can add to and deepen the setting and feel of the world so sometimes it’s just as good as long as you don’t go overboard (As we’ll talk about in the next tip).

--How not to go overboard with irrelevant description and flowery language

This is mainly an issue because it clutters up posts and is honestly just painful to read in most cases. Long posts are not always good posts (so important to remember!!) and if other RPers find themselves reading your posts and gagging a little, it’s probably time to tone down the random descriptions and language.

1. First and foremost, let’s deal with the flowery language. By flowery, I mean poetic (IE emerald eyes, shining locks, alabaster skin, etc.) The truth is that good writers don’t use this kind of language. It is cliché, it’s annoying to read and good writers (or those who want to be) should avoid it like the blight on literature that it is. Yes, sometimes a poetic description will slip in and that’s fine but if your character always has shining orbs and sparkling eyes, it’s time to put away whatever book you’re getting these things from and come up with original descriptions or maybe just stop using adjectives for a while.

2. Secondly, let’s deal with random description overkill. Description is good only when it has a purpose relevant to the RP as a whole. Describing things about your character that others may need to know (like yeah, he’s wearing black clothes and a red vest and he has a huge metal arm with a Gatling gun on one end) or describing pertinent things about the setting are both perfectly acceptable. However, describing minute details that are mostly irrelevant to the RP serves only to fill your post with empty words. It might be nice to know the red vest is brocade because that implies that the guy is rich but RPers don’t need to know that the form fitting vest, which accentuates his manly chest is brocade with silver trim in the shape of little asymmetrical shamrocks which match the three hundred carefully placed silver gears on his Gatling gun arm, which also has little engravings of roses all over it.

Usually that level of minute description stems from trying to show how pretty, cool or otherwise amazing your character is. Adding this level of detail does not make your post ‘good.’ In fact, it does just the opposite. Any post written solely to please the poster or call attention to itself rather than to contribute to the RP in some way is worthless.

Along this same vein, we don’t need to hear your character’s eye color (or any other attractive body part) in every post. It’s okay to mention these things occasionally but if your character is frequently batting their blue eyes at people or flinging their golden tresses over their shoulders please bear in mind we’re all smart enough to either remember their hair and eye colors or go look them up should we need to know.


--How to work dialogue so you don’t end up preaching instead of conversing

Dialogue can be tricky for so very many reasons. One thing that seems problematic in particular is knowing when to end your post. If your character is trying to make a point, it’s really easy to have them go on and on until they’ve said everything YOU want to say on the matter. The issue is that this closes off posts so that people cannot reply to things they might wish to reply to because your character has made twelve points in two minutes. And at the same time, it usually makes your character look like a preachy jerk and not at all like the wise, knowledgeable person you likely are trying to have them appear as.
And frankly, real conversations don’t work that way.

1. It’s pretty easy to recognize if this is a problem in your post. If you have more than two paragraphs of your person talking, you’re most likely preaching. That is WAY too much dialogue for one post with the way this RP works. Unless your character is giving a formal speech, you should cut out dialogue and break your post at a point that will allow a person to reply. Generally it’s good to post a SINGLE thought in an argument. Maybe two if they’re closely related. You should not be posting four or five thoughts within a given topic or argument—it’s far too much, it’s preachy and it’s difficult to reply to because it’s weird to reply to point one when there are several other more recent points to address as well.
Usually I’ve observed people do this when there are intent on having their character be right—so they post as many points as possible to keep the other person from being able to post a proper rebuttal.

Which is, needless to say, rude. So don’t do it.


--How to make sure you give your RP partner something to reply to

This has already been addressed in a tertiary manner but here we’re going to talk about it more in depth because the fact is that a long post is not always one that is easy for someone else to reply to.

1. In order for someone to respond in an RP, that means they have to have something for their character to react to, usually an action or a dialogue. Characters cannot respond to internal dialogue unless they are psychic, which most are not. So if your character is standing in one place, thinking, guess what? You’ve left your RP partners with absolutely nothing to react to. However, that doesn’t mean that every action and every bit of dialogue is response worthy either. You have to question whether what your character is saying/doing is actually relevant to the situation. Or if the action or dialogue alone is enough or should it be accompanied by the other.
If someone pours their heart out to your character “Oh” is probably not going to be a good response unless you want the other character to get mad or your character is just a complete jerk. There’s just not enough content to “Oh” to really react to with anything beyond somewhat awkward silence.

At the same time, having your character scratch their nose, for example, isn’t exactly response worthy either. The dialogue and actions need to have more substance to them and be more specifically geared toward the situation and character they’re interacting with.

2. However the other side of this problem is having your character do so much that the other person has way too much to respond to. Changing topics five times in a long rant (this goes back to not preaching), bouncing around uncontrollably or just being way too random are all going to limit responses or at the very least, make it difficult for the other person to choose what to react to. It’s always fun to play a character that is a little random but you should be aware that having your character be too far out there in left field might make it very difficult for people to respond to you. When someone is a bit too wacky for comfort, saying “Oh…” might actually be the only way to respond. It’s one thing to play someone who is crazy (because that in itself elicits a response of some kind) and playing one who just out right is not making sense.

--How to give your character depth

There are a lot of things that can contribute to a character lacking depth. Bland personality, bland history, lack of involvement in the RP, lack of character growth within the RP, lack of conflict, constant conflict and so on. I’ll try to deal with what some of the major issues are that can force your character into two very bland dimensions.

1. Building a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu). A Mary Sue (and their male counterparts) are overly idealized characters with often hackneyed, contrived responses. They lack noteworthy flaws (that are intentional—they’re often clingy, whiny and annoying but their creators will not acknowledge this to be true so these flaws don’t count) and are primarily used to serve as wish fulfillment for their creators. The very definition of a Mary Sue is self indulgence. One of the major issues with them is that because they’re too idealized, they lack substance. And because the creator is usually trying to push how wonderful they are, they ignore opportunities for character growth (Because they’re character is too wonderful to grow anyway). The problem with Mary Sues is being able to honestly admit when you’re RPing one. The Mary Sue Litmus Test is GREAT for identifying Sues but you absolutely *must* be honest with yourself about these answers. It can be difficult but your character will be better for it.

2. Giving your character a detailed past does not automatically mean the character will have depth—and giving them a vague past does not mean they will be shallow. The key is to ensure your character has real reactions to their past and current situations. A young girl who was kidnapped and enslaved by cruel piratey types is not going to be a completely well adjusted and normal teenager upon her escape. At the same time, she is not going to be traumatized and stay traumatized forever(!!!) She will have issues and then she will grow out of them and manage to heal emotionally. So be aware—it’s not just the history and situation of your character. It’s how they react to that that will build their personality and give them depth.

3. Clichés can be fun to play with but unless you’re using a cliché in a special way, you should avoid them for your characters. A gypsy girl who wears stereotypical gypsy clothes, plays the tambourine, dances around fires and does other “gypsy” things is, well, like every other cliché gypsy girl in the history of authors who have a poor understanding of gypsy culture. Clichés are a sure fire way to smash an otherwise decent character into two dimensions and contemn them to an eternity of being a cardboard cutout so do your best to avoid them. Regardless of your character’s history, ethnicity or culture, they are an individual. Stereotypes are boring but individuals can be very interesting.

4. Growth. The point of conflict is to inflict change upon your character. People do not stay the same over time. The things they experience cause them to change—shy people can come out of their shells and extroverted people can become recluses. An idiot can become a wise man (well…sometimes…) and a savage can become a lady. The point is that your character should grow and change. Keeping them the same despite that the situation around them is constantly changing is pretty much going to ensure that your character will be shallow.

5. Motivation. Everything your character says or does is driven by their motives. Not only should you be pretty clear on your characters motives but your character should not have the same motive for every situation they encounter. If a characters driving motivation behind every situation is to help people and spread rainbows and sunshine, not only will they probably get stabbed in the face by the first grouchy assassin they meet, but they’re also going to be extremely boring. By the same token, if a character’s single motivation is to ruin everyone’s day and crush dreams and kick puppies, well, they’ll probably get stabbed too. And they’ll be equally as boring.

The point is that people have varying motives for varying situations and while all these motivations may tie into one or two main motives, knowing what their specific aims are for a given situation (and sometimes even revealing them in your posts) will add depth and variety to your character. On a related note, it’s important to keep a character’s motive realistic for who they are. You can’t just pick something and say it’s a motive when it doesn’t make sense for that person.



--How to avoid having a character that’s too flashy or attention whoring

The main issue with them is that ego-stroking that surrounds these characters and the scenes they’re in often disrupt the RP. These characters are usually easily identified by a few annoying traits. Usually these characters can get away with things they shouldn’t, they manage to know and figure out things they shouldn’t, they tend to have tons of amazing hidden traits, know the answer to every problem and so on. I’ll try to address some of these more specifically.

1. It’s important to ask yourself how realistic you’re being with your character. Any character who always the right answer is being unrealistic. This manifests in several ways. One of the most common ways is to constantly give the character the right skill they need or the right tools they need just at the right moment. If your character has 300 hidden talents (like speed reading, photographic memory, being super sneaky, knowing how to pick locks, being an amazingly awesome fighter DESPITE that they probably wouldn’t realistically have that training…yeah…they’re “flashy”) it's too much. I also see this a lot with doctors and healers who have a technique for healing every injury, or a cure for every disease. And no, your doctor shouldn't just happen to have pure silver medical tools just because one person in the RP can only be touched with silver.

Your character can’t solve every problem and get all the glory. It’s not realistic and it’s annoying. It doesn’t mean that your character can’t have hidden talents or have some solutions but you’ve got to keep it realistic.

2. This also happens with characters who can “read” others so well that they constantly can figure out what someone is thinking (like posting “Bob knew Mary was mad just by looking at her” when Mary’s owner never gave any indication her anger was apparent just by looking at her.) Or characters who figure out major plot points when there isn’t yet enough evidence to support their hypothesis. Before your character reads another like an open book—make sure the other person has given you enough reason to believe your character SHOULD be able to do this. If they post their person clenching their jaw or stiffening their body, it’s fine. Otherwise. Don’t.

At the same time, you can’t have your person constantly figuring out what is going to happen when not enough evidence has been presented yet. Just because YOU know something as a player, doesn't mean your character should be able to figure it out so easily in the RP.

3. The other major trait these characters have is a lack of realistic consequences for their actions. Peasants do not tell off nobles without consequence. Brash men don’t push their way into an aristocrat’s house and be rude to them and their servants without getting arrested (really…they don’t.) And pirates don’t get to pirate without someone wanting to arrest them. If you’re often having your character act in ways that should result in punishment, your character should be getting punished.

If you’re often writing solo posts to have your dirty peasant tell NPC nobles how stupid they are, or creating NPC bounty hunters for your good natured pirate to randomly kill…without consequence, your character most definitely falls into the ‘flashy, attention whoring’ category.

So...in a skype conversation, someone sent me this truly terrifying character description. I was going to try to highlight the worst parts but.....the whole thing is really bad. This isn't meant to be judgemental and mean. This is an honest critique by me, as a writer, of a really terrible character description.

So here's a great example of how NOT to describe your character. Ever.

A few personal thoughts:

1. Why is this person describing the character's ears as if they're somehow extremely different from everyone else's ears? Like not everyone has earlobe or not everyone's ears are on the sides of their heads? I've seen people do this a lot with lips too. Either way, it's really odd.

2. Moon-worshipping hair!? And why does it sound like it's groping her rear and generally making out with her? Why does she need THAT sentence to say the girl has butt-length blonde hair? @_@

3. Cusp of womanhood. 'Nough said. No, not really. Trust me, it's way easier and better to say "She looks younger than she is.' Cusp of womanhood is just...it's like something from a really bad romance novel.

4. Why was there a sentence even even needed to say "she has a neck and there is blood inside?" Isn't that...a given? I mean, most people have those--unless they've been beheaded. And generally you don't need a sentence pointing out that your character has not been beheaded.

5. A woman THIS serious about fighting (based on the extreme armor description) needs a damn good reason for having hair that long and not keeping it tightly bound up. I mean, her armor is designed not to hinder movement but then she has this silvery hair flying around everywhere? No. And I'm willing to bet, the author does NOT have a good reason for giving her that hair length beyond the fact that it's clearly meant to make her UBER BEAUTIFUL!!!11one!!!1

The main problem with this description is that there are too many weird metaphors, too much over the top, cliche, poetic language, too much weird personification that makes her hair seem more like a lecherous old man and too much stating the obvious but trying to make it sound like there's something special about ordinary features like...pale skin, normal looking ears and the fact the woman has (*gasp*) a neck.

The whole thing reeks of Mary Sue + the need to show how awesomely beautiful, awesome, bad a** and awesome this character is and how everyone should think they're totally awesome. Shoving this much "my character is awesome" down everyone's throat is totally unnecessary.

Untouchable, unattainable as the most remote of glacial mountain peaks - severe and distant, with only frigid hints of the dark mountain heart of her inner being - this woman radiates an almost palpable aura of, 'Keep the ******** away.'

White gold silk cascades in free-flowing, straight, and thick ripples down the woman's back, finding rest just at her rear. Gently kissing her forehead and cheeks, shorter, errant tendrils slip free of the rest of her mane, glistening with hints of near pure silver...soft highlighting to gleaming waves. Face thusly framed embraces wide, luminous tsavorite eyes that shimmer with transparence, lightly veiled beneath thick, platinum lashes which sweetly dust peach kissed curve of high cheekbones. Slender brows of white-gold arch gently over deep-hued eyes, and smaller ears with tiny lobes - set flush against her head - taper up to gentle, vague hints of peaks, while slightly sensual lips are oft twitched into whatever expression that reflects her current take on the world. Skin is fair, almost translucent and luminescent, perfect companion to otherworldly, bewitching eyes and moon-worshipping tresses.

Though something subtle within her features might almost render her as seeming eternally poised upon the cusp of womanhood - alluring yet somehow innocent - the tests and travails of a much more difficult life tell in the cool frostfire behind her gaze, the subtle little lines at brow and corners of mouth which deepen at the pull of more negative emotions. There is strength and deep determination within this one - a challenge offered, or cold and dark intent promised - when she looks upon others, her chin lifting just so, eyes flashing with hints of what lies within. The column of her fair throat is slender-seeming and arching, blue-blooded pulse thudding deeply within.

The chestpiece of the hi-tech armor which protects her is a solid flat charcoal-grey in color: no hint of gloss, no possible reflection given from the material - just a hint of soft sheen in angled light. The armor defends lower throat, upper chest and most of her torso, and conforms to every basic plane of her body to minimize bulk. Thick and yet somehow also thin, the odd 'metal' suit is snugged to the woman by some unknown means - though there do seem to be pivot points at the left, beneath her arm - the design leaving only the abdominal area open so as to not hinder more stealthy movement.

From hidden hips to knees there is armor - more of that dusky, tough protection - its interlocking, smoothly-articulated plates somewhat thicker than those at chest, biceps, and forearms. Not one bit of extra armoring is seen at the insides and rear however, since it would hinder movement. On the outside of the right thighplate is a built-in holster, which could contain any handgun one might imagine, and upon the left is a reinforced pocket likely containing many secreted things. The culmination of the armor are the interlocking knee and lower leg plates: somewhat vicious-looking joint protectors appear as if they could rip through soft flesh if given enough force, joining to the top of shin guards constructed of two perfectly fitted pieces clamshell-moulded together around her lower leg.

Beneath this formidable outer armor is an inner one of flat-black material, the stuff seen to flex rather obviously at belly and joints when the woman moves, and what appear to be a pair of 'gloves' formed from the same strange material peeking out upon hands at joints from beneath the heavier protection of articulated, outer hand armoring. What might seem like an addendum to all this ferociously tough body gear is a pair of footwear that approximate boots - though they too are composed of the same thick armoring as her outer carapace of protection - fitting in some unknown way about lower calves and feet, articulated to allow free movement. Combined with the impressive strength that the suit of powered armor offers her, almost any impact from those feet will likely be a highly unpleasant one, at the very least.

A very few signs of use appear upon her formidable armor, the stuff most likely being taken exquisite care of by its owner, since it was crafted for her frame only. A fractional hint of a dent exists here, a dark scuff there, miniscule echos of grooves from some beast's huge claws, mayhap...perhaps even a vague point where the unknown metal was fused, once. No matter, it seems to provide her with more than ample protection, whether from blunt, sharp, or other weapons. Engage this woman at your own risk.